Page 22 of The Mafia Bloodline
And gods help him if he touched Runa.
Chapter 9
The bed felt too big without him. Too cold, and the room was too quiet.
For a few blissful seconds, I forgot where I was. I stretched under the sheets, half smiling as my hand brushed the spot where Volken should have been, he was so warm, solid, impossibly still when he slept. But when I found only cool linen, my stomach twisted.
The bond still hummed faintly between us, he was alive, awake, somewhere out there, but that didn’t stop the ache of separation.
It had been three days since we’d come up for air, three days since the rest of the world had stopped mattering. But now that he was gone again, the silence of the mansion pressed on me like a weight.
I got up slowly, pulling on black jeans and a loose sweater that still smelled faintly of him. My reflection in the mirror made me pause, hair a tangled mess, eyes shadowed but clearer than they’d been in months.
But beneath that clarity, the old ache burned. My father.
Eight months of running, searching, chasing whispers in the dark. And now I was supposed to sit here? Eat breakfast, smile, pretend like I wasn’t dying inside while Volken and his brothers decided my fate for me?
No. I couldn’t do that.
I glanced at the clock, it was well into the night. The vampires would still be buried in whatever business they handled before daylight.
Perfect. I pushed back the sheets and swung my legs over the side of the bed, my body still heavy with that languid, post-Volken ache. The room was dim, lit only by the faint silver wash of moonlight spilling through the windows. My clothes still in a pile on the armchair. I crossed to them quietly, every step soft, careful not to make the floorboards creak.
Pulling off his shirt, the one I’d stolen to sleep in, felt like shedding a layer of safety. The cotton still smelled like him: smoke, iron, and something darker, something that always made my stomach twist in ways I didn’t understand.
I forced myself to look away from the bed and started dressing.
First came the black jeans, snug and worn enough to move in. Then the charcoal-gray sweater I’d bought months ago, before my father disappeared. I tied my hair back in a messy knot, catching sight of myself in the mirror.
Honey eyes. Tangled honey hair, and determination where fear should have been.
I didn’t look like the same girl anymore, the one who used to sit at her father’s workbench sorting screws while he told her stories about far-off places. This version of me had dark circles, sharper edges, a haunted kind of focus.
“Get it together, Runa,” I muttered under my breath. “You’re not backing down now.”
I grabbed my worn leather jacket from the chair, the one that had belonged to my father. The inside pocket still held the folded note I’d found in his study, the address that had started all ofthis, that had led me to Malakai and in return here, to this mansion, to Volken, to all of it.
My chest tightened as I ran my thumb over the faded ink.
“Hang on, Dad,” I whispered. “I’m coming for you.”
Then I slipped into my boots, zipped the jacket, and crept toward the door, quiet, steady, a pulse of adrenaline already thrumming in my veins.
It was the perfect time to slip away. My heart thudded faster as I eased the bedroom door open. The hall was dim, lined with the soft glow of sconces. I could hear faint murmurs somewhere below, the low, even cadence of guards talking.
Every creak of the floor felt like a shout, every shadow like a trap. I moved quietly, keeping to the edges, the way my father had taught me when we used to play hide-and-seek in the scrapyard near our old house. “Stay small, Ru,” he’d whisper. “The world never sees what it doesn’t expect.”
My throat tightened at the memory.
I reached the staircase and paused, listening. No one. Just the faint hum of the refrigerator from the kitchen below and the rhythmic tick of a clock. I slipped down the steps, one hand grazing the railing, every nerve stretched tight.
The main doors loomed ahead. Heavy, reinforced. Two guards usually stood there at night, but right now, it was just me and the echo of my own pulse.
Almost there. I was halfway across the foyer when a voice made me freeze.
“Going somewhere, Runa?”
I turned slowly. Ashen stood in the archway leading from the hall, a vampire I recognized only vaguely. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with pale blond hair that brushed his collar, and eyes so pale they looked silver. Roman’s man. Loyal, quiet, the kind of predator that didn’t need to raise his voice to be terrifying.
